Monday was the perfect beach day. It was hot, the sun stung and Markius Woods was itching for a dip in the lake. He begged his younger sister to join him at 31st Street Beach.
“No,” Markeishaa Woods recalled telling him firmly over the phone, just 15 minutes before the accident. “I don’t swim in water when I can’t see the bottom of it. I don’t trust it.” The most she ever dares to do is wet her toes in the white foam. Besides, she had just heated up dinner.
Markeishaa Woods swore that if she had gone, she would’ve somehow faced her fears and rescued her 32-year-old brother before the waves swallowed him, making Markius Woods at least the 20th drowning victim in Lake Michigan this year.
While all the Great Lakes can be dangerous, metrics point to Lake Michigan being the deadliest — it has had nearly as many drownings and water rescues as the four other Great Lakes combined since 2010.
And drownings in Lake Michigan have surged so far this year with at least 20 recorded, compared with 23 for all of 2015, according to data compiled by the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project. The nonprofit, which aims to promote water safety awareness, bases its drowning tabulations on reports from the U.S. Coast Guard, first responders and news outlets, and includes some unconfirmed drownings.
Experts said the distinctive shape of the lake, which is 307 miles long with parallel, uninterrupted shores running north to south, makes it susceptible to dangerous currents. Lake Michigan is also the Great Lake with the sandiest shores, drawing more visitors and creating tides along sandbars that are deceptively strong and prone to risky currents.
“People go out there, unaware of the risk. Then those waves come and beat you up. They’re relentless, and that’s something that’s radically different from what the ocean has,” said Mark Breederland, an educator with the Michigan Sea Grant Extension. “Oceans have long, periodic waves. Our waves are every three seconds. Here comes another one and another one and another one.”
Since 2010, Lake Michigan had at least 223 drownings, nearly as many drownings as Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario combined, which combined had at least 251 drownings, according to the rescue project. About 15 of those Lake Michigan drownings occurred in the Greater Chicago region, with three, including that of Woods, taking place in the past week.
David Halford, 37, of Hobart, Ind., and Kyle Reibly, 26, of Hammond, died Saturday at Wells Street Beach in Gary trying to help others struggling in the surf, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources said.
“We’re a tremendous tourist area. Lots of people utilize Lake Michigan, but they’re not familiar with the kind of waves that exist out there and really how hard it is to provide help if someone gets in trouble,” Breederland said.
Lake Michigan had 83 current-related drownings and 253 water rescues of swimmers caught in currents between 2002 and 2015. The total current-related incidents are more than double the number of incidents for the four other Great Lakes combined, which had 69 drownings and 68 rescues, according to data compiled by the National Weather Service and Michigan Sea Grant.
The data, which only tabulate confirmed current-related drownings and may be incomplete because of underreported rescues and limited access to Canadian numbers, shows that Lake Michigan averages about six current-related deaths per year.
The lake’s unmatched drowning toll is the result of its shape and formation, making it favorable for weather and wave conditions that create hazardous currents, experts said. Winds blowing north to south over 307 miles of open water, with no trees or obstructions to interfere, allow waves to build before they crash onto the shore, said Dave Benjamin, executive director of the rescue project.
If the winds are strong enough, they can form high waves, forcing large amounts of water to hit the shore. That water then needs to find a way to flow back into the lake, and by doing so generates dangerous rip currents, he said. The lake also often experiences longshore currents, formed by winds hitting the shoreline at an angle.
Many beaches along Lake Michigan have shoreline structures like piers or break walls, which help pile up water near the beach, Benjamin said. The structures generate strong currents that will recede down the length of the pier, and are often perpendicular to the beach. If people choose to jump off piers or break walls for fun, they can jump right into these structural currents.
At Promontory Point in Hyde Park, for example, structural currents can form on both the north and south sides of the peninsula depending on the wind, creating dangerous conditions, Benjamin said.
“When you’re caught in a dangerous current, it’s confusing which way you’re being pulled. You can be pulled into a rip current, then pulled into a longshore current, then a structural current,” he said. “The currents are usually working in concert together.”
Lake Michigan’s high volume of beaches puts swimmers at greater risk too. And sandbars, the sand that piles up parallel to the beach, give people the perception of relief, since they can touch the sand. But sandbars are dangerous, said Breederland, the educator with Michigan Sea Grant Extension. When people wade in the water and then choose to swim across the sandbars, farther and farther from the shore, they’ll suddenly find themselves in water up to their neck, no longer able to touch the sand. And when large waves come unexpectedly, swimmers are at risk of drowning, Breederland said.
Most drownings occur when people feel comfortable in the water and nothing seems dangerous, he said. If people see a 7-foot wave in August, they know not to enter the water. But when people, particularly young men, see 3- or 4-foot waves, they feel confident they can tackle them, he said.
Sometimes they can and sometimes, especially if a rip current interferes, they can’t. If they can’t, experts say, it’s because they start panicking, instigating an “overwhelming experience you don’t ever want to go through.”
If caught in a current, experts advise swimmers to flip their bodies and float, so that they can calm down and conserve their energy.
Megan Dodson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service who compiles data on current-related drownings, said most incidents happen in July and August. Warmer water and air temperatures bring peak numbers of people to the beach. Sunny beach days can make incidents more common on Lake Michigan than on Lake Superior, for example, where the water is much colder.
Recent elevated water levels also can lead to larger waves and stronger currents, experts said. Lake Michigan has risen about 4 feet since January 2013, when it hit a record low.
Lake temperatures near Chicago are also up this year compared with previous years, at 73 to 75 degrees this month, according to the National Weather Service, and that warmth draws more people into the water. On July 9, 2015, temperatures ranged from 60 to 64 degrees.
It was a sunny beach day that drew Markius Woods, who lived in Lawndale, to 31st Street Beach about 7:30 p.m. Monday. He just wanted to unwind, his sister said.
A graduate of Farragut Career Academy, Woods was an excellent drawer and enjoyed fixing things and playing video games. In a video he sent to Markeishaa Woods moments before the accident, Woods was jumping around in the water with a wide smile on his face.
“The way my brother died, he was having fun,” she said. “I would prefer that any day than him dying because someone took his life from him.”
Twitter @marwaeltagouri
